Clinton addresses Michigan Democrats

Former president campaigns for Granholm, Stabenow.

Former president campaigns for Granholm, Stabenow.

August 17, 2006|DAVID RUNK Assoicated Press Writer

TAYLOR, Mich. -- Former President Clinton told a crowd of Democrats that they must fight to re-elect Gov. Jennifer Granholm to keep efforts to turn around the state's troubled economy on track. Clinton headlined a rally Tuesday outside City Hall in this Detroit suburb with Granholm and U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, fellow Democrats who face tough challenges from Republicans in the November election. "If you believe that Michigan ought to be a place where everybody has an opportunity, where everybody's expected to be responsible, where we go forward together, you need to vote for the governor and senator," Clinton told the crowd, which a Michigan Democratic Party spokesman estimated at about 1,000 people. Clinton has proved popular with Michigan voters, winning the state in 1992 and 1996. After the rally in Taylor, he planned to attend a fundraiser for Stabenow in Romulus and energize Democratic activists to work hard to re-elect her and Granholm. Although Michigan was the only state in the country not hit by a hurricane to lose jobs last year, Clinton told the audience that Granholm and Stabenow are fighting hard to keep jobs in Michigan and noted that a turnaround takes time -- especially with a Republican-controlled government in Washington and GOP-led House and Senate in Michigan. "These women have done a good job under exceedingly difficult circumstances," Clinton said. "They have carried the burden of deficits they did not create, they showed responsibility that others didn't show to point a path to a future that's better." But Republicans say that if Michigan wants a better economy, it needs to replace the first-term governor and senator. Polls have shown Stabenow with a double-digit lead over her Republican challenger, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard. But the National Republican Senatorial Committee considers her to be one of the Senate's most vulnerable incumbents. Stabenow told the crowd that she and fellow Democrats will continue to fight for the middle class. "We're in a fight for a way of life and it's a fight we've got to win," Stabenow said. The committee says she has been ineffective and is trying to make up for that by appearing with Clinton. Republican gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos, a businessman from Ada in western Michigan, has stressed the need to turn around Michigan's struggling economy and begin adding jobs rather than continuing to lose them. "Stabenow and Granholm have put Michigan first in every category where we want to be last," Michigan Republican Chairman Saul Anuzis said. "We are first in unemployment, people moving out of the state and personal bankruptcies. "In order to really put Michigan first, we first need to elect a governor and a senator who will really do something to make it happen." Michigan's June unemployment rate, 6.3 percent, was fourth-highest in the nation and greater than the U.S. average of 4.6 percent. The state's economy has been hurt by the struggles of domestic automakers and the bankruptcies of major auto parts suppliers. Clinton, who shared the stage with U.S. Reps. John Dingell and John Conyers, Lt. Gov. John Cherry and labor leaders including Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, also urged Michigan voters to reject an anti-affirmative action proposal scheduled for Michigan's November ballot.